John Montgomery Presents This Week's	January 15, 2000	Creep Logo by Alan Fraser
	The Elian Gonzalez Players
	Let's Play Elian-Ball!

There's a new game in town called Elian-Ball. It's played by politicians, judges, bureaucrats, busybodies and crackpots. The goal is to toss a 6-year-old boy named Elian repeatedly across the ocean between Miami and Havana. The players enjoy engaging in public mine-is-bigger-than-yours pissing contests. The winners get to spend the most time on TV and determine where the boy will end up. Elian is the ball, and no matter who wins, he's also the loser.

Elian Gonzalez arrived in the United States on Thanksgiving Day after being rescued from the Atlantic ocean, where he was clinging to an inner tube. His mother, stepfather and ten other people drowned in a failed attempt to take a boat from Cuba to Florida. Only Elian and two others survived.  You'd think an experience like that would be traumatic enough for a young boy. But within days, the Elian-Ball teams were formed and began running plays.

Juan Miguel Gonzalez, Elian's father back in Cuba, said he wanted his son to return home. The boy's relatives in Miami, with whom he's staying now, said "Forget that, you Castro-loving, sleazy communist toad! He's staying here!" Protesters in both places took to the streets in large numbers, waving signs which mostly said, "Hooray for our side."

Last week, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, which evidently decides these matters, ruled that Elian's father is the only person able to speak for him in immigration matters and that Elian would have to go back to Cuba.

That's when Elian-Ball began getting really bizarre. Congressman Dan "Scumbag" Burton, certainly the dumbest personage on Capital Hill today (and possibly of all time), issued a subpoena for Elian to testify before the House Government Reform Committee at a hearing on February 10. Here's a kid who's undoubtedly having nightmares about watching his mother drown in the ocean who will now have the even more horrifying experience of coming face-to-face with an intellectually-challenged, babbling bozo wearing a cheap toupee.

Then, Miami Family Court Judge Rosa Rodriguez gave Elian's great uncle temporary custody and said that the INS ruling was nullified. The Elian-Ball team in Miami was overjoyed until it was revealed that family spokesman Armando Gutierrez was a paid campaign worker for Judge Rosa.

Attorney General Janet Reno also weighed in, saying she would not be paying any attention to that lowly, corrupt judge, and any legal proceedings better be in a federal court, and all you Elian-Ball players better get your acts together soon before I decide to take this kid home myself.

Amongst all of Elian's other problems, he had the misfortune to arrive on these shores during a presidential campaign year. The Republican candidates were all falling over each other to proclaim that Elian should stay in the United States no matter what his father wants. You might recall that this is the same political party which can't stop preaching about the sanctity of family values and the scourge of illegal immigration. But don't expect any common sense from the Democrats in the race, either. Al Gore, whose entire campaign message seems to have been reduced to, "I was there when Clinton fixed the economy but I was on vacation when he was shagging Monica," wondered whether the INS had the "experience and expertise'' necessary to make these decisions.

Elian's father Juan has had his fill of Elian-Ball and offers the best solution to this whole mess I've heard so far: "Perhaps I might be a little bit crazy because I would feel like breaking the neck of all those SOBs... Sometimes what I would like to do is go down there with a rifle -- I don't know -- to get rid of how many people."

I think I'll let Juan have the last word.